Thin, crisp and cut into squares: Eater says tavern-style pizza has spread from the Midwest to menus coast to coast. Here is why bars and chefs love it.
Tavern-style pizza, the thin, cracker-crisp pie cut into small squares, is spreading across American restaurant menus. According to an Eater feature published this week, the style that Midwesterners grew up on has swept from coast to coast in recent years, and the word "tavern" is now doing as much work as the crust.
What makes a pie tavern-style
Eater describes tavern-style pizza as prevalent across the Midwest, with Chicago, Milwaukee, Minnesota and St. Louis all touting similar pies. Its signature is a thin, cracker-like crust cut into a lattice instead of triangular slices. Depending on the region and the pizzeria, the sauce can lean sweet or spicy, but lightness and crispness are the selling point.
The grid cut matters, Eater reports. Bradley Shorten, who runs Kim's Uncle Pizza in Westmont, Illinois, and the newly opened La Merna in Washington, D.C., told the outlet that a pizza yields more slices when cut into squares, and that every square should carry a bit of every ingredient, with toppings going right to the edge. The four small corner pieces may not be the "best", he said, but they are the ones everybody reaches for.
A style carried by nostalgia
Eater says restaurants from New York to Texas and Colorado have opened tavern-pizza spots, among them Keepers in New York City, One Trick Pony in Fort Worth, Texas, and Tillie's Tavern Pizza in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Brittany and Brennan Grosvenor, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs and now run Proof in Portland, Oregon, told Eater that deep-dish is a rare treat in Chicago and that tavern-style is what families order every week. They have added Bosco sticks and Italian beef with giardiniera to their menu to capture the feel of a Chicago tavern.
Mike Fadem, who is from St. Louis, added a tavern-inspired pie called the "tavernetta" when he opened the second location of his New York pizzeria Ops. He told Eater his version leans on whole-grain sourdough and a very crisp finish, and that his research found the best examples in Milwaukee. According to the report, the tavernetta sits alongside the restaurant's other pies rather than replacing them.
Why bars like it
The appeal is also practical. Eater notes that pizza cut into small squares makes good drinking food and fits on a cocktail napkin. Brynn Smith, owner of the Los Angeles cocktail spot Bar Next Door, said the venue added food in June partly so customers would stay longer. The bar lists its tavern-style pies as "bar pies", made for it by Prince Street Pizza.
Eater ties the trend to a wider fondness for the "tavern" feel, a homey, lived-in space where diners can stay a while. For many Midwesterners, the outlet says, the national attention is also a chance to correct the record about what Chicago pizza really is.
Picture credit: Photo: The ed17, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
